Vest Pocket Computers Changing Life in Clinics

The so called "Personal Digital Assistents" (PDA's) could be used during education of doctors, during everyday life in clinics, in research and when optimising processes, says Baumgart in the scientific journal „The Lancet“.

"Notebooks are just too big", explains Baumgart. "But with this small electronic companion doctors can view laboratory values and histological diagnostic results, look up new medical conclusions via internet or check out the right dosage and side effects of drugs. That way, we are able to provide a scientifically established medicine." Soon it may certainly also be possible to load complex pictures from computer tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound and endoscopy.

Additionally, palm pilots could become essential also when it comes down to hospital economy. "PDA's can come up with information on final payments for diagnostics and procedures within seconds, data entry can comfortably be accomplished with a plastic pin or a barcode scanner", points out Baumgart.

Last but not least, also patients would profit from these new minicomputers by keeping a diary and measuring values such as the frequency of breathing and oxygen saturation. Baumgart: "It is thinkable that PDA's check out the values and warn against asthma spasms or low blood sugar." The dubbing of these data would facilitate clinical research.